A Deal With The Dragon

There once was an ugly duckling … but this story isn’t about him.

No, it’s partly about a dragon who was no picture either, but that’s the very nature of dragons really, isn’t it? Unless you’re another dragon, and then I suppose they may all have a certain allure.

But I digress already.

This dragon lived in the mountains, as dragons normally do. Like all of his brethren and sistren, he had a fiery temper to go with his fiery breath. The temper of this dragon was especially incendiary, however, and came from a sense of inferiority, which in turn came from a bad case of unrequited love. So I suppose he can’t really have been endowed with too much of that dragony allure I mentioned before.

Without further ado, though, let’s give this dragon a name. Or rather, let’s not give him a name as such – because he already had one, and that was Beldugarria, which I’m sure meant something significant.

So Beldugarria, or Beldy to his friends (of which he had very few, if any at all, but that’s another story) tried to fill the vacuum left by his amorous frustrations with fun. His fun – not restricted to weekends – entailed swooping down from his lair and terrorising local farms and villages.

Just imagine, if you will, the sight of an airborne, ten-ton, scaly, fire-breathing death-beast hurtling down at you from the sky. And when you know what he did with anyone who was caught abroad at the moment of his raids … well, I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t nice, I can tell you. In short, wouldn’t you be terrorised?

So the folk of the kingdom lived in fear 24/7 – though if the truth be told, Beldy rarely attacked at night, so maybe 14/7, depending on the season. The king of this kingdom – one King Kol (nicknamed Koldurra by the peasants; once again, that name was significant, I expect) – got a bit fed up of Beldy’s antics and resolved to resolve the problem. But how?

Well, as convention dictated, by offering the hand (not to mention the rest) of his only daughter, the fair Ederra, to whomsoever would have the brass balls to rid the kingdom of the beast. He ordered that notices proclaiming this on-paper-generous but in truth more-than-likely-fatal offer be posted in the four corners of the kingdom.

Sadly, the servants he gave the order to weren’t very bright and took it quite literally, only posting the parchments in, yes, the four (very remote) corners of the kingdom, so that hardly anyone actually got to see them.

To make matters worse, those that did inadvertently come across them couldn’t read, so the message was lost on them. Not for the first time, the king’s lack of investment in the basic education of his subjects proved to be a false economy.

But fear not, the notice was seen and understood by someone who is very important – nay, vital – to this story.

Ausarta was, like Beldugarria, coming off a failed romance, but rather than terrorise local populations, this chap merely fled his own region and wandered through the countryside, seeking solace in the birds, trees, flowers – in short, anything that would take his mind off the perfidious love of his life, Etsipena.

He wandered, and wandered, and wandered … until one day he saw one of the parchments posted on a post. Then he wondered: Could Ederra be the figurative sticking plaster that would effectively close the wound to his heart? He decided to give it a go … not realizing that with time and the elements, an important part of the offer had faded from the parchment: the bit about the dragon.

In the court, the king received this unknowingly brave fellow with some surprise; not a single suitor had come forward in the months since he’d ordered the posting of the notices ... for the reasons that we know. But you don’t look a gift zaldi in the mouth, as the local saying went; Ausarta was welcomed effusively and introduced to the prize.

If it had been the vernacular of the time, Ausarta might have let a “Wowza!” slip out at beholding the ravishing Ederra, for ravishing she most certainly was: slim, blue-eyed, fair-haired, red-lipped … I could go on, but this is a family show. Suffice it to say that the young man was smitten and Etsipena banished from his imaginings in an instant.

He was still feeling dazed by Ederra’s beauty when the king outlined the task, thrust a sword in his hand, pointed to the mountains, and gave his fresh horse a helpful thwack on its hind quarters. For two days and nights, Ausarta made his way through the cold foothills, warmed by the glowing mental image of his bride-to-be (he was a very confident and optimistic chap, Ausarta).

Eventually he approached the dragon’s lair, and he knew he was nearly there because for several miles his horse had been crunching underhoof … human bones! Now, you might think that Ausarta would be quaking in his stirrups by this time, but the heart – not only in the physiological sense – is a wondrous thing; Ausarta’s burgeoning love for Ederra had been transformed into a steely courage that knew no fear.

And so he rode on to meet his fate … in the shape of a particularly bolshy Beldy, who hadn’t made any sorties for days, because of a bad bout of the flu, and was starving. (Here, the astute reader will wonder, quite rightly, how a dragon – who hadn’t had any contact with other dragons for ages – could catch the flu. I can only surmise that it was someone he ate.)

Beldy heard Ausarta coming a mile off because of the crunchy bones and welcomed the visit as a famished family of four might welcome a pizza delivery. When the dinner-to-be rounded a rocky outcrop and appeared in front of him, Beldy let out a blood-curdling roar, but without the fiery breath; the flu can do that to a dragon.

He was shocked and somewhat miffed, however, to find that this mere mortal did not flee, or fall off his horse, or in any other way demonstrate the terror that was essential to any self-respecting dragon’s raison d’être. Indeed, not only did this puny being not show fear, but he also had the audacity to come out with a greeting:

“Good day, dear dragon.”

Now, Beldy had been around a bit, but ne’er had he ever heard the like and resolved to finish this impudent intruder off at once; it would only be a snack, of course, but it would be something to quell the rumbling in his tummy.

As he approached Ausarta to do the dreaded deed, however, Beldy stopped dead in his tracks. There was something … something about this specimen … something he couldn’t quite put his claw on.

Then it came to him: love! Love radiated from this fellow like light from the sun. Beldy recognized it and envied Ausarta for it – given the dearth of love in his own life. So, instead of instant death, Ausarta did at least have the benefit of some social intercourse with the beast, which began thusly:

“So, come to slay me have you, human?”

“I would rather not,” Ausarta said, dismounting. “But if I have to – to win the hand and so on of the fair Ederra – then slay you I shall.”

“Got a bit of stuff then, have you?” Beldy asked in the vulgar style that dragons favour, just to show they’re not soft.

“I would prefer that you did not refer to my love in that way,” Ausarta responded, a little bite in his tone. “But I do have someone promised to me, yes.”

Beldy was about to continue with his vulgarities when something happened: he softened. All this talk of love had struck him like a spear – or an arrow, why not? – to his heart. And like a patient on a shrink’s couch, he opened up.

“I had a love once, you know?”

“I did not, no. Tell me about her,” Ausarta said, like the owner of that couch.

And so Beldy talked (and talked and talked – there were years of hurt to unpack) about the love that had escaped him.

By the end, both he and Ausarta – and the horse, as it happened – had to wipe away a tear, such was the emotion the story had generated. But there was a matter still to be resolved, or Ausarta wouldn’t get the damsel: Beldugarria had to be slain.

Unless Ausarta could come up with another plan.

“Tell me, dear dragon,” he began, a plan indeed forming as he spoke. “Would you be interested in meeting a lady dragon of my acquaintance?”

Beldy scoffed wetly, his snout dripping with fluey stuff.

“You know a dragon?!”

“I do yes,” Ausarta half-lied. The truth was that he knew of a dragon in his home region, though he’d never actually met her (because ‘meeting’ a dragon normally means instant death, as we know). “Her name is Lampurra. If you are so inclined, I think we can make a deal.”

And he grabbed a tibia that lay nearby to draw a map in the dirt.

*****

A couple of days later, the king was outside his castle, trimming a hedge, when a fearsome shadow obscured the spot where he stood. He looked up to see Beldugarria swooping down on him. Knowing his number was up, he realized he had no time to hide, so with an uncommon stroke of courage, he held his head up to face his fate.

And that’s when he witnessed, in the eyes of the great beast, something he never imagined he’d ever see there: fear, pure and simple.

Beldugarria got as close as he could with the swoop then banked away towards the east, letting out a screech that he hoped would convey pain and terror that he did not of course feel. But he had practised well.

The king, shaking like a leaf, went to have a lie down to recover from the near-death experience. He was woken an hour or so later; a sentry on the battlements was blowing his horn like nobody’s business, which caused the king, Ederra, and the rest of the castle-folk to come rushing into the courtyard.

“It’s … it’s …” the sentry called down.

“Come on, man, spit it out,” the king called up impatiently; his nap had been ruined and there’d be all hell to pay if he hadn’t been woken for good reason.

“It’s … that bloke from the east!” the sentry spluttered, forgetting Ausarta’s name in his excitement.

The throng thronged across the drawbridge and squinted to see a figure in the distance limping towards them, leading his horse.

Taking Ederra by the hand, the king hurried to meet what they discovered to be a dishevelled and bloodied young man, apparently on his last legs. Luckily, he had just enough stamina to reach Ederra and fall theatrically into her arms, then slip to the ground with an exhausted groan. The horse, meanwhile, wandered off to chew the green, green grass of home – always the tastiest – wondering why its master hadn’t simply ridden in.

“I … I failed to slay the dragon, I fear,” Ausarta gasped as Ederra placed his head in her lap, stroking his hair and dabbing with a handkerchief at the blood plastered over his face – blood from a poor, unsuspecting squirrel that Ausarta had trapped on his way down from the mountains.

“But,” he continued, “I think I wounded him. Oh, it was such a battle – the likes of which I have never experienced before, and never wish to again.”

“Shush,” urged the king. “Save your strength. I have seen the dragon and I can attest that he was indeed sore afeared and sounded as if he was in agony. He fled towards the Eastern Mountains.”

“I am glad. I trust that will be the last we see of him.”

“If what I witnessed is anything to go by, it will,” said the king. “We shall be eternally grateful to you, young man.”

Ausarta knew that, of course, and smiled beneath the mask of blood, manoeuvring his head to nestle against the warm bosom of his fair bride-to-be.

And they all lived … well, you know the rest.